FORTIS LEPUS

A sculpture for Movägen’s elder’s home in Kiruna / stoneware, mosaics, concrete and stone / 2016

Statement:There are a lot of wild forest hares around Kiruna. They are beautiful as they jump around, stop, listen and search their sorroundings, always alert, always a prey. Lepus Timidus is latin for the forest hare that changes it’s fur color to match and blend in for the season. Litterarly it means ‘rabbit afraid’. The latin becomes a metaphor for the animal’s living conditions and what it has to deal with in daily life. One day when I was out in the forest I came across a corpse of a white hare. There it was, in it’s lovely white and soft fur, stained by blood, crooked in an unatural mortal posture, beyond rescue. It touched my heart. I’ve been thinking of this little animal, it’s whereabouts and why it had to die like that? Since then it has been waiting to become a sculpture…

In the sculpture it can rise again. A sculpture is not dead, it is a strong symbol. The little hare is vivid and beautiful. It sits still and calm, yet attentive and alert. It is not afraid, rather courageous. It is a courageous hare – Fortis Lepus.

This sculpture became in an honour of my late Siamese cat, Isaac, who lived by my side for almost 15 years. During this sculpture project Isaac died and I had to deal with my emotions as I kept sculpting the hare: it’s posture, slender body and long noose and legs with big paws could likely be a Siamese. Isaac was very interested in the hares too. They were about the same size as him. Fortis Lepus is sculpted twice: first in solid clay on metal armature, then dismounted from the armature, hollowed and resculpted back together again. The mosaics are handmade and the tin glaze is developed in my studio. The stone is a two tons block containing iron ore and from the foot of Luossavaara, a local mountain in Kiruna.